Monday, February 29, 2016

Liberal Bull Shit Claim: Study finds consistent link between violent crime and concealed-carry gun permits Tell Me All About Black Killing Black?


 





The magnitude of this association is relatively low” — meaning it’s junk.
The media release is below.
###
Study finds consistent link between violent crime and concealed-carry gun permits
INDIANA UNIVERSITY

INDIANAPOLIS — The first study to find a significant relationship between firearm crime and subsequent applications for, and issuance of, concealed-carry gun permits has been published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

The paper, “Firearm Violence and Effects on Concealed Gun Carrying: Large Debate and Small Effects,” found there is a consistent link between violent crime — especially crimes that involve guns — and an increase in the number of people issued carry permits over two time periods examined in the study, said Jeremy Carter, an assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

While the link is consistent and robust, Carter said the magnitude of this association is relatively low.
“It seems the level of debate surrounding violence and concealed carrying far outweighs any observed effects,” Carter and his co-author, Michael Binder, an assistant professor at the University of North Florida, conclude. “We acknowledge that other factors are just as — if not more — important and highlight the need for more refined research to parse out any plausible relationships.”
“From a theoretical perspective, the finding of firearm crime as a predictor of concealed carrying is the first such demonstrable relationship and provides evidence that should solicit further investigation,” the study says.

The research focuses on county-level data from all 67 counties in Florida, which has issued more concealed-carry permits than any other state. As of November 2015, there were 1.6 million valid concealed-carry permits in Florida.

The study measures violent crime using the Uniform Crime Reporting index offenses of violent crime, including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The two time periods examined by the study are 2005 to 2012 and 1996 to 2012.

Theoretically, nonviolent crime receives noticeably less media attention and does not carry the heightened degree of sensitivity that comes with firearm violence. As such, there could be unique differences between firearm and non-firearm violence that might influence people’s decision to want to carry a gun, says Carter.

Given the complexity of legal gun carrying, Carter and his co-author included a number of control variables that helped to isolate the effects of firearm violence. Carter said, “After controlling for a range of possible explanatory factors, the relationship between firearm violence and subsequent legal gun permitting is quite present.”
###

Liberal Big Citizen United Lied They Do Want Corporate Lobbyists Money In Political, Whitehouse: The Climate Movement Needs More Corporate Lobbyists


 



cross corporate America, there is broad support for action on climate change. Leading businesses and executives vocally supported President Obama on the Paris Agreement. Many companies have committed themselves to getting onto a sustainable path, and many are pushing their commitment out through their supply chains. This is good, and it’s important.

But it makes us in Congress feel a little left out. The corporate lobbying presence in Congress is immense. But in my experience, exactly zero of it is dedicated to lobbying for a good, bipartisan climate bill.
Dante wrote that above the Inferno was a sign: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” But there is hope in Congress. Many of my Republican colleagues are eager for some political support, to counter the fossil fuel industry’s relentless onslaught.

Despite the statements emitted from oil companies’ executive suites about taking climate change seriously and supporting a price on carbon, their lobbying presence in Congress is 100% opposed to any action. In particular, the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade association, is an implacable foe. Given the industry’s massive conflict of interest, there is every reason to believe they are playing a double game: trying to buy a little credibility with these public comments while using all their quiet lobbying muscle to crush any threat of bipartisan action on the carbon pricing they claim to espouse.

I am a sponsor of a Senate carbon fee bill, so I know this firsthand. I see their destructive handiwork all around me — and they have no corporate opposition.

Let me use the example of two good guys: Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. I believe they care about climate change. They have no conflict of interest like fossil fuel companies do. Both signed a public letter urging strong action on climate in Paris. Pepsi signed two major business climate action pledges, the Ceres BICEP Climate Declaration in the United States and the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group Trillion Tonne Communiqué in the UK.

Coca-Cola’s website says it will reduce CO2 emissions by 25% by “making comprehensive carbon footprint reductions across its manufacturing processes, packaging formats, delivery fleet, refrigeration equipment, and ingredient sourcing.” Coca-Cola says, “We…encourag[e] progress in response to climate change.” Indra Nooyi, chair and CEO of PepsiCo says: “Combating climate change is absolutely critical to the future of our company, customers, consumers — and our world. I believe all of us need to take action now.”

And they are taking action. Their effort puts Coke and Pepsi at the forefront of corporate climate responsibility. But they lobby Congress through a trade association, the American Beverage Association, and through the business lobbying group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The American Beverage Association sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and contributes a lot of money to it.

The American Beverage Association, as far as I can tell, has never lobbied on climate change. When the Association thought Congress might impose a soda tax to fund health care, they lobbied like crazy — nearly $30 million dollars’ worth. They know how to lobby, when they want to. But on climate, I’ve never seen it.

Everyone in Congress knows that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dead set against Congress doing anything serious about climate change. The U.S. Chamber is very powerful, and its power in Congress is fully dedicated to stopping any serious climate legislation. We see their hostility everywhere.

The result is that Coke and Pepsi take great positions on climate change in their public materials and private actions, but here in Congress their lobbying agencies don’t support their position.
No corporate lobbying force is exerted for good on climate change. Mars, maker of the iconic M&M, is going fully carbon neutral. Its climate performance is spectacular. No lobbying.
WalMart, America’s biggest retailer, is spending tens of millions of dollars to become sustainable. No lobbying. Apple and Google and Facebook are forward-looking, cutting-edge companies of the future, and they lead in sustainability. No lobbying.

The reasoning I am given is always the same. People fear retribution, so embedded is the fossil fuel industry in Congress. The result is the good guys abandoning the field to the worst climate actors in America: the fossil fuel industry and its array of front groups. They don’t just lobby. The roughest of these, Americans for Prosperity, boasts loudly that it will spend $750 million in this election (it’s already through $400 million and climbing) and that any effort to address climate change will put candidates in “political peril,” that they’ll be “at a severe disadvantage.” Subtle like a brick.
My response is twofold.

Climate change is not just any other issue. It’s so big an issue that the world’s leaders just gathered in Paris to address it. It’s so big an issue that it has its own page on most corporate websites. It’s so big an issue that our former Pacific commander, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear, said it was the biggest national security threat we face in the Pacific Theater. To use his words, climate change “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen…that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.” So it’s big enough for corporations to treat it as more than just another issue in Congress.

Second, they can’t hurt you if you organize. An antelope alone may fall to the hyenas, but the herd will protect itself. The fossil fuel industry can’t punish Coke and Pepsi and WalMart and Apple and Google and Mars and all the other 100-plus companies who rallied publicly around a strong Paris agreement. You have to stand together.

Around Congress, the bullying menace of the fossil fuel industry is a constant. If the good guys cede the field to them, the result is predictable: members of Congress frozen in place, often against their better judgment. It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m in Congress, and I’m writing here to say: we need you guys to show up.

Sheldon Whitehouse is a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. He is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Judiciary Committee, and the author of legislation to put a fee on carbon emissions.

https://hbr.org/2016/02/the-climate-movement-needs-more-corporate-lobbyists

Want more out of HBR.org?

Sign in to get more free content each month and build your own personal library on HBR.org.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

In The 1970's Liberal Fought To Get Women On The Police Force, So They Can Be Killed On The Job? Liberal Care About Women? Virginia Officer Killed On Her First Day On Job, 2 Other Officers Injured In Shooting






A Virginia police officer who was on her first shift with a department was shot and killed Saturday and two other officers were wounded in a standoff stemming from a call about a domestic-related incident.


Prince William County Police Department said officers responded to a call about 5:30 p.m. in Woodbridge, about 20 miles south of Washington, D.C. It’s unclear how the altercation between the suspect and police began, but the suspect is in custody and was not injured, Sgt. Jonathan Perok said.
The suspect has not been identified, but Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebery says he has authorized a capital murder charge, among other counts, against the suspect.
http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/02/28/virginia-officer-killed-her-first-day-job-2-other-officers-injured-shooting

MSNBC To Dump Melissa Harris Perry After Host’s Racist Outburst Against Network Executives




MSNBC has parted ways with host Melissa Harris-Perry after she complained about preemptions of her weekend program and implied that there was a racial aspect to the cable-news network’s treatment, insiders at MSNBC said.
Harris-Perry refused to appear on her program Saturday morning, telling her co-workers in an email that she felt “worthless” to the NBC-owned network. “I will not be used as a tool for their purposes,” wrote Harris-Perry, who is African American. “I am not a token, mammy or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by [NBC executives] or MSNBC. I love our show. I want it back.”
The rebuke, which became public when it was obtained by the New York Times, has triggered discussions involving the network, Harris-Perry and her representatives about the terms of her departure, said people at MSNBC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Harris-Perry’s departure has not been formally announced.
The flap with Harris-Perry, who did not respond to a request for comment, follows a strategic transformation of MSNBC that has swept up several of its minority program hosts. Specifically, the network — which typically finishes far behind Fox News and CNN in cable-news ratings — has been trying to emphasize breaking-news coverage during daytime hours while maintaining a slate of liberal hosts during prime-time hours at night. Like its competitors, it has emphasized breaking campaign coverage, which lately has bumped Harris-Perry from her regular spot.
The network earlier faced some outcry on social media over its irregular preemptions of Jose Diaz-Balart, who hosts a two-hour bloc from 9 to 11 a.m. weekdays. Diaz-Balart’s disappearance from the air prompted a hashtag —#MasJose — and a petition to encourage MSNBC to feature him on the air more often.
Diaz-Balart’s hosting duties are also in question at the network. Scenarios under review include extending the “Morning Joe” program into Diaz-Balart’s slot or creating a new program hosted by one of “Morning Joe’s” regular personalities. Diaz-Balart, who also anchors for NBC-owned Telemundo, is based in Miami, which complicates his role anchoring weekday coverage for New York-based MSNBC. He will continue anchoring “NBC Nightly News” on Saturdays.

All of the changes carry a potential perception risk that MSNBC — known as the most liberal among the three leading cable-news networks — is diminishing the contributions of its minority personalities, network officials acknowledge. In addition to the issues with Harris-Perry and Diaz-Balart, the network’s new emphasis on news during the day have led to the demotion of two African American hosts: the Rev. Al Sharpton and Joy Reid, both of whom have been moved from daily shows to lower-profile weekend slots. (Reid assumed Harris-Perry’s hosting duties on Saturday.)
At the same time, the network brought back Brian Williams to be its leading daytime news anchor. Williams was suspended by NBC and ultimately lost his job as the anchor of NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” last year after he exaggerated the details of his reporting exploits in a series of media appearances.
In a statement, MSNBC spokesman Mark Kornblau said, “We are proud of the diverse backgrounds and viewpoints of our journalists, opinion hosts and analysts. We will gladly put that up against everyone else in the news business.”
MSNBC’s pivot to more news reporting, especially campaign coverage, has lately resulted in improved ratings. So far this year, its weekday ratings among all viewers have grown 57 percent over the same period in 2015, compared with a 38 percent gain for CNN and 20 percent for Fox News, the cable-news leader, according to MSNBC. Among viewers aged 25 to 54, a key bloc for advertisers, MSNBC is up 76 percent, compared with 25 percent for CNN and 19 percent for Fox.
MSNBC executives said that they were surprised by Harris-Perry’s blast on Friday and that it may have stemmed from her perception — incorrect at the time, but now a reality — that her weekend program was about to be canceled. “She’s a brilliant, intelligent but challenging and unpredictable personality,” one executive said. “There was no plan to cancel her.”
He added, “It’s highly unlikely she will continue” at MSNBC. Her email “is destructive to our relationship.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/msnbc-will-cut-ties-with-show-host-who-wrote-critical-email-to-colleagues/2016/02/27/bce30c8e-dd82-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?


Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?

Melissa Harris-Perry Get Mad At M.S.N.B.C Now? I Will Not Be Used As a Tool for Their Purposes’?


 







MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry blasted network executives in an email sent to colleagues and published online Friday, writing that recent decisions to substitute her weekend show for 2016 coverage had left her “effectively and utterly silenced.”

Harris-Perry’s letter was posted in full to Medium after The New York Times broke the news that she had no intention of hosting her show Saturday.

“Putting me on air seems to be a decision being made solely to save face because there is a growing chorus of questions from our viewers about my notable absence from MSNBC coverage,” she wrote. “Social media has noted the dramatic change in editorial tone and racial composition of MSNBC’s on-air covera


Harris-Perry, who also accused MSNBC of taking away editorial control from her, suggested her race might have played a role in the network’s behavior toward her.

“The purpose of this decision seems to be to provide cover for MSNBC, not to provide voice for MHP Show. I will not be used as a tool for their purposes,” she wrote. “I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by Lack, Griffin, or MSNBC.”

he MSNBC host, who is also a tenured professor, later appeared to recant that statement, telling the Times that she doesn’t think executives are “doing something mean to me because I’m a black person.”

An NBC News spokesperson told the Times that 2016 programming had forced many daytime programs to be substituted with campaign coverage and called the way Harris-Perry handled the situation to be “surprising, confusing and disappointing.”

In this exciting and unpredictable presidential primary season, many of our daytime programs have been temporarily upended by breaking political coverage, including M.H.P,” the statement said. “This reaction is really surprising, confusing and disappointing.”

But, Harris-Perry’s contention appeared to go beyond just her show. She argued in her letter that she felt the network was intentionally keeping her off air — even during campaign coverage.

“I have stayed in the same hotels where MSNBC has been broadcasting in Iowa, in New Hampshire, and in South Carolina, yet I have been shut out from coverage,” she wrote. “I have a PhD in political science and have taught American voting and elections at some of the nation’s top universities for nearly two decades, yet I have been deemed less worthy to weigh in than relative novices and certified liars. I have hosted a weekly program on this network for four years and contributed to election coverage on this network for nearly eight years, but no one on the third floor has even returned an email, called me, or initiated or responded to any communication of any kind from me for nearly a month.”

“It is profoundly hurtful to realize that I work for people who find my considerable expertise and editorial judgment valueless to the coverage they are creating,” Harris-Perry continued.
Harris-Perry wrote that she would return when allowed to do “substantive, meaningful and autonomous work,’ but “not a moment earlier.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/02/26/i-will-not-be-used-as-a-tool-for-their-purposes-msnbc-host-unleashes-on-network-in-brutal-letter/


Pot is power hungry: why the marijuana industry's energy footprint is growing

 




Marijuana might look and smell natural, but its ecological footprint is anything but green. Pot is power hungry.
The $3.5bn cannabis industry is one of the nation’s most energy intensive, often demanding 24-hour indoor lighting rigs, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems at multiplying grow sites. As many as 10 states could legalize recreational marijuana this year, which means the resultant electricity consumption could cause problems for public utilities and city officials.


A study by scientist Evan Mills, with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, revealed that legalized indoor marijuana-growing operations account for 1% of total electricity use in the US, at a cost of $6bn per year. Annually, such consumption produces 15m tons of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2), equal to that of three million average cars.

In 2012, Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational marijuana. Two years later, Denver’s 362 marijuana grow facilities consumed more than 2% of the city’s electricity usage. Statewide facilities are behind roughly half of Colorado’s new power demands.

Cannabis growers are moving slowly toward energy efficient practices, largely out of fear for how changes might affect the quality of their product.

“They approach these things with a great deal of caution, especially when you talk about things that have a crop-wide effect,” said Ron Flax, sustainability examiner for Boulder County, Colorado.
“Each crop cycle has a lot of dollars associated with it, so they’re really hesitant to try something new and hope it works.”

“But they’re also paying very high utility bills.

Flax said electricity represented roughly 20% of the total cost of a cannabis operation.
In Boulder County during the second quarter of 2015, a 5,000 square foot indoor cannabis facility was eating about 29,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity monthly. A local household in the county was consuming about 630kWh.

Given cannabis’ appetite for energy – coupled with Colorado’s mostly coal-fired power plants – Boulder County has required commercial cannabis growers to either offset their electricity use with renewable energy, or pay a 2c charge per kWh.

The fees accrued go towards the Energy Impact Offset Fund, which is used to educate and finance sustainable cannabis cultivation in the county, such as installing energy monitors at grow facilities.
But this has also kept energy efficient technologies from budding. Even after legalization in Colorado, new grow operations largely resemble underground operations. Investors have been hesitant to jump onboard.

“But it’s shifting,” said Flax, “as lots of energy professionals and knowledgeable product manufactures are entering the marketplace.”

Data centers, for example, have similar high-intensity energy profiles. Flax said some experts are moving into the weed sector, to profit from crossover technologies.


In other states where the recreation market has taken off, cannabis production is having a similar effect.
According to a report by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in Oregon – where recreational marijuana has been legal since 2014 – an indoor grow system for only four plants sucks up as much energy as 29 refrigerators.

The report also estimated that the emerging market could warrant the electricity demands of a small city in the next 20 years.

Such needs have put strain on public utilities. Last summer in Portland, Oregon, Pacific Power reported seven outages from cannabis production. Portland General Electric (PGE) experienced similar blows

 We don’t track the numbers specifically related to cannabis producers, but some have created dangerous situations by overloading existing equipment,” said Steven Corson, a PGE spokesman.
Customers of PGE and other Oregon utilities are directed to the Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO), which offers cash incentives and technical services to marijuana businesses looking to save energy and reduce costs.

“For a few lighting projects we’re helping medical marijuana growers complete, the cash incentives range from $15,000 to $80,000, depending on the size of the lighting system,” said Alex Bartini, industrial senior program manager for ETO.

Oregon, like Colorado, has no statewide energy efficiency regulations or rules that are specific to growing marijuana.

“We are in the learning stages, as is much of the industry, on where and how marijuana growing operations can reduce energy consumption,” said Bartini.

In Washington state, which legalized recreational cannabis in 2012, rewards programs are cropping up.

Solstice, a Washington-based cannabis grower, worked with public utility Seattle City Light to establish an incentives program for energy efficient upgrades for “indoor agriculture”.


Alex Cooley, vice-president of Solstice, said the utility agreed to give them a six-figure rebate if they used 100 LED lights in their growing operation. The upgrade will put less burden on City Light’s infrastructure and save Solstice 50% of their energy use.

“It’ll be less money for us to operate the facility over time,” said Cooley.
Solstice uses 1,000W high intensity discharge lamps (HID), which easily compare to LEDs for the vegetative phase, where roots and leaves are developed.

But, said Cooley, “we don’t believe that the LED technology is necessarily there yet for the flowering side”. Flowering is when the plants grow smokeable buds.

Gabriel Romero, communications at Xcel Energy in Denver, Colorado, has heard similar feedback. Excel works directly with growing operations to determine their energy needs.

“Growers tell us that it takes an extra four weeks with LEDs, and to them it’s just not worth it from a financial standpoint,” he said.

And while Xcel does provide rebates to businesses that lower their kilowatt hours, the cannabis industry accounts for only a handful of such rewards. The reason is that cannabis cultivators have no guidebook.

“In growing operations each person has a different way of doing it,” said Romero. “There’s no standard.”

‘It’s the closest thing to the sun’

As long as lighting continues to account for 80% of any indoor grower’s electricity use, lighting companies can feast on the marketplace.

Boulderlamp, in Colorado, has created the 315W CDL Agro grow light, which uses less than half the wattage of a standard 1,000W high-pressure sodium grow lamp.

If growers replace one standard lamp with two 315W CDLs, said Jack Elliot of Boulderlamp, they can increase production by roughly 25% while saving up to 45% on energy.


Its spectrum resembles the sun’s spectrum more than any other artificial light source,” Elliot said. “In the cannabis world, it’s the closest thing you can put in an indoor environment that mimics the sun. And the plants go absolutely crazy under these things.”

Sunshine is what growers seek, but outdoor operations leave crops vulnerable.
“[Indoors] you’re able to perfect your yields and your quality much more,” said Alex Cooley at Solstice. “But if you’re outdoors, you’re completely subject to the season.

“As well, the vast majority of us growers have learned indoor as a result of prohibition.”
Consumers may have been trained to believe that indoor-grown is simply better bud, but Solstice has partnered with farmers that use multiple outdoor operations and greenhouses for cannabis cultivation. He believes the market will eventually head outside.

“In my opinion, indoor cannabis is going to be a very shrinking component of the market, because it’s just too expensive,” he said. “You can’t justify the cost of $400 or $500 a pound to cultivate inside when you can cultivate outside for $50 a pound.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/27/marijuana-industry-huge-energy-footprint?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+header&utm_term=159134&subid=13454200&CMP=ema_565



Thursday, February 18, 2016

White Privilege’ Vs White Suicide , White, Middle-Age Suicide In America Skyrockets



Suicide, once thought to be associated with troubled teens and the elderly, is quickly becoming an age-blind statistic. Middle aged Americans are turning to suicide in alarming numbers. The reasons include easily accessible prescription painkillers(link is external), the mortgage crisis(link is external) and most importantly the challenge of a troubled economy(link is external). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention(link is external) claims suicide rates now top the number of deaths due to automobile accidents.
The suicide rate for both younger and older Americans remains virtually unchanged, however, the rate has spiked for those in middle age (35 to 64 years old) with a 28 percent increase(link is external)from 1999 to 2010. The rate for whites in middle-age jumped an alarming 40 percent during the same time frame. According to the CDC, there were more than 38,000 suicides(link is external) in 2010 making it the tenth leading cause of death in America overall (third leading cause from age 15-24).

The US 2010 Final Data(link is external) quantifies the US statistics for suicide by racesex and age. Interestingly, African-American suicides(link is external) have declined and are considerably lower than whites. Reasons are thought to include better coping skills when negative things occur as well as different cultural norms(link is external) with respect to taking your own life. Also, Blacks (and Hispanics)(link is external) tend to have stronger family support, community support and church support to carry them through these rough times. 
While money woes definitely contribute to stress and poor mental health, it can be devastating to those already prone to depression -- and depression is indeed still the number one risk factor for suicide. A person with no hope and nowhere to go, can now easily turn to their prescription painkiller and overdose, bringing the pain, stress and worry to an end. In fact, prescription painkillers were the third leading cause of suicide (and rising rapidly) for middle aged Americans in 2010 (guns(link is external) are still number 1).
Just because a person attempts suicide doesn't mean they want to die. Rather, often they have lost what I call the, “power of hope(link is external)”. When faced with a bad situation that has no end in sight, coupled with the helpless feeling that nothing you can do will make a difference it’s all too easy to lose hope. At that point suicide for some becomes a viable option rather than continuing to face the constant pain and suffering that life has become. If you can give someone who is contemplating suicide merely the glimmer of hope, that is often enough to get them through the rough patch to consider other options.
Suicide may inspire others(link is external) to view it as a way out, as well. Suicide epidemics(link is external), copycat suicides and the Werther effect(link is external)(suicides that spike after a highly publicized suicide) are all in play at this point. We thought until recently that this was primarily a problem affecting other countries with different social norms (Japan) or of economies that had collapsed (Greece), but statistics don’t lie -- this is an American problem and it is now huge. 
Suicide is not a hip topic. Suicide is not something that's discussed at the water cooler. BUT, suicide is something that needs to be acknowledged and discussed. We are constantly warned, “if you see something suspicious, say something” to prevent acts of terrorism. This should hold true as well for your friend, colleague, co-worker or family member who is having a tough time. Sometimes just a short conversation can save a life.
The US 2010 Final Data(link is external) quantifies the US statistics for suicide by racesex and age. Interestingly, African-American suicides(link is external) have declined and are considerably lower than whites. Reasons are thought to include better coping skills when negative things occur as well as different cultural norms(link is external) with respect to taking your own life. Also, Blacks (and Hispanics)(link is external) tend to have stronger family support, community support and church support to carry them through these rough times. 
While money woes definitely contribute to stress and poor mental health, it can be devastating to those already prone to depression -- and depression is indeed still the number one risk factor for suicide. A person with no hope and nowhere to go, can now easily turn to their prescription painkiller and overdose, bringing the pain, stress and worry to an end. In fact, prescription painkillers were the third leading cause of suicide (and rising rapidly) for middle aged Americans in 2010 (guns(link is external) are still number 1).
Just because a person attempts suicide doesn't mean they want to die. Rather, often they have lost what I call the, “power of hope(link is external)”. When faced with a bad situation that has no end in sight, coupled with the helpless feeling that nothing you can do will make a difference it’s all too easy to lose hope. At that point suicide for some becomes a viable option rather than continuing to face the constant pain and suffering that life has become. If you can give someone who is contemplating suicide merely the glimmer of hope, that is often enough to get them through the rough patch to consider other options.
Suicide may inspire others(link is external) to view it as a way out, as well. Suicide epidemics(link is external), copycat suicides and the Werther effect(link is external)(suicides that spike after a highly publicized suicide) are all in play at this point. We thought until recently that this was primarily a problem affecting other countries with different social norms (Japan) or of economies that had collapsed (Greece), but statistics don’t lie -- this is an American problem and it is now huge. 
Suicide is not a hip topic. Suicide is not something that's discussed at the water cooler. BUT, suicide is something that needs to be acknowledged and discussed. We are constantly warned, “if you see something suspicious, say something” to prevent acts of terrorism. This should hold true as well for your friend, colleague, co-worker or family member who is having a tough time. Sometimes just a short conversation can save a life.
The US 2010 Final Data(link is external) quantifies the US statistics for suicide by racesex and age. Interestingly, African-American suicides(link is external) have declined and are considerably lower than whites. Reasons are thought to include better coping skills when negative things occur as well as different cultural norms(link is external) with respect to taking your own life. Also, Blacks (and Hispanics)(link is external) tend to have stronger family support, community support and church support to carry them through these rough times. 
While money woes definitely contribute to stress and poor mental health, it can be devastating to those already prone to depression -- and depression is indeed still the number one risk factor for suicide. A person with no hope and nowhere to go, can now easily turn to their prescription painkiller and overdose, bringing the pain, stress and worry to an end. In fact, prescription painkillers were the third leading cause of suicide (and rising rapidly) for middle aged Americans in 2010 (guns(link is external) are still number 1).
Just because a person attempts suicide doesn't mean they want to die. Rather, often they have lost what I call the, “power of hope(link is external)”. When faced with a bad situation that has no end in sight, coupled with the helpless feeling that nothing you can do will make a difference it’s all too easy to lose hope. At that point suicide for some becomes a viable option rather than continuing to face the constant pain and suffering that life has become. If you can give someone who is contemplating suicide merely the glimmer of hope, that is often enough to get them through the rough patch to consider other options.
Suicide may inspire others(link is external) to view it as a way out, as well. Suicide epidemics(link is external), copycat suicides and the Werther effect(link is external)(suicides that spike after a highly publicized suicide) are all in play at this point. We thought until recently that this was primarily a problem affecting other countries with different social norms (Japan) or of economies that had collapsed (Greece), but statistics don’t lie -- this is an American problem and it is now huge. 
Suicide is not a hip topic. Suicide is not something that's discussed at the water cooler. BUT, suicide is something that needs to be acknowledged and discussed. We are constantly warned, “if you see something suspicious, say something” to prevent acts of terrorism. This should hold true as well for your friend, colleague, co-worker or family member who is having a tough time. Sometimes just a short conversation can save a life.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201305/white-middle-age-suicide-in-america-skyrockets